Opportunities in Logistics Infrastructure in Mexico

Opportunities in Logistics Infrastructure in Mexico

In the next few years, the development of logistics infrastructure in Mexico will not only be a requirement for the growth of many sectors of the country's economy but it also will provide large business and investment opportunities.

The challenges brought by economic globalization and trade openness make competitiveness ever more pressing for Mexico. One of the keys to positioning the country as a global trade leader over the coming decade is the development of an international logistics capability that joins production, cost, quality and customer service to provide an integrated supply chain, indispensable to new business and trade practices.

By César Bukno / ProMéxico

Mexico has positioned itself as an attractive location for productive investment, something that has favored the recent increase in advanced manufacturing industries based in the country, such as aerospace, automotive, electronics, medical and food processing, among others. That has further encouraged investment in multi-modal transport corridors comprising inland ports, industrial parks and free trade zones in order to develop Mexico as a logistics platform and link it to world markets.

In recent years, Mexico has pushed forward the most ambitious infrastructure program in its history, building and modernizing a 133,000-kilometer network of highways, 76 airports –64 with international flights 27,000 kilometers of railroads and 117 maritime ports –of which 68 are container ports. Together, these means of transport connect the states on the Pacific coast with those on the Atlantic, and the communities in the north of Mexico with those in the south.

Furthermore, Mexico has taken significant steps forward in regulatory issues, such as the creation and implementation of the so-called "one-stop-shop" for carrying out procedures related to the import and export of goods.

In that context, logistics is one of the sectors with the greatest development potential in Mexico, due to the need to optimize logistics centers to offer higher competitiveness to potential investors. To that may be added the creation of new economic and commercial frameworks in which the country is a partner, such as the new treaty with Peru, the Pacific Alliance, the consolidation of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the expansion of agreements signed with Colombia and Japan and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).

The TPP alone represents a major step in commercial activity and inter-dependence within the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) zone, which shall provide the basis for an increase in productive investments and lead to new opportunities for a range of industries.

That impels Mexico to increase its productivity and raises the need to administer – efficiently and in a competitive manner– the supply chains for commodities arriving from all over the world in order to integrate them and transform them into goods that will, in turn, be sent –efficiently and competitively– to every part of the globe.